Scaling Up Learning Communities: The Experience of Six Community Colleges
Mary G. Visher, Emily Schneider, Heather Wathington, Herbert Collado, National Center for Postsecondary Research, 2016/10/11

I'm preparing for a talk on Thursday on learning communities and encountered this excellent study from 2010. This is a fairly large study, as the title suggests, and the report (153 page PDF) provides a comprehensive overview, including these observations:

• A paid coordinator and committed college leaders were essential to managing and scaling up learning communities.
• As coordinators clarified expectations and offered support, faculty responded by changing their teaching practices.
• Curricular integration remained difficult to implement widely and deeply.
• Student cohorts led to strong relationships among students, creating both personal and academic support networks.

Additionally, the authors recommend curricular integration supporting active and collaborative learning, including collaboration with faculty and student services, with the objective of promoting student engagement.

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Why It’s Time to Let Go of ‘Meritocracy’
Doug Belshaw, DMLcentral, 2016/10/11

"Building an education system around ‘meritocracy’ as it is commonly used post-Thatcher may be a function of those in power being so privileged that they are not in a position to see their own privilege," writes Doug Belshaw. "Those who have never witnessed people having to work three jobs to keep their family afloat may not understand why parents can’t do more to coach their children through an entrance examination." I hear this. I managed to keep my grades up while working my way through university, but I wonder what sort of networking opportunities I lost while working at 7-Eleven Friday nights and Saturday nights.

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I <3 DML
Alan Levine, CogDogBlog, 2016/10/11

Long post covering a number of keynote, hands-on and eveen virtual sessions from last week’s Digital Media and Learning conference. It's Alan Levine getting excited about educational technology again, and when that happens, it's always a good read. He also talks about his new approach to conferences: "A conference now to me is a huge serendipity engine that plays off of, and can amplify the valuable of connections in the online space. But not on its own. You have to initiate a few things." This includes talking to people in meal line-ups, going to sessions without checking the session titles, and watching the 'ignite' talks for new ideas. He also talks about the idea of leading into in-person talks with online talks involving the same audience. All good stuff.

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